Why Do So Many Games Have Tanks, Healers and DPS?

Throw the healer mechanics out of the window, no more heals for everyone. Throw the tank mechanics out of the window, just everyone gets the same damage. Whats than the fun? You could focus on damage combination with terrain manipulation, elements, crowd control, choose positions and so much more. You doesn't need the trinity for everything, just creativity. But than aggain.. you can just add such thinks to the 3 role system 'but' there is a reason that tank and healer always are that what you need in group finder if you don't play it yourself: most people just like doing damage, so just avoid making the others a must have.

That Rocket League comparison hurts my brain as someone who actually plays it haha, everyone plays every role all at once, not split into the three

I find it pretty interesting how in the Goat meta of overwatch in 2017/18 the best strategy was to run three tanks and three healers, how the tables turned...

one game tried to not go this way : Dofus.
he allows to to go in this trinity, but every class can play solo, and is able to handle every situation.
Late game, all have summons, heal, tank, dps, even sneak , close combat and distance capacity.

At least... had... before players complain about "not being able to play as a team"
because we hate learning...

This exists for the same reason slavery does, there's always those people who want people to support them without supporting themselfs.

That is why the game I’m making doesn’t have any of this, just pure DAMAGE

EverQuest 2 does a great way of adding to the trinity with a 4 role which is called “utility.” Depending on the xpac, some classes really excel at a certain type of buffing or debuffing which makes sense essential to certain dps checks in raid

I don't think it should be broken. People will always fall under these types. So the best way to make it so that it is not boring, is giving people moments of shine. Or having characters switch roles depending on the situation. All of this leads to having a variety of enemy types that can change dynamically. Or have obstacles that can be solved by everyone differently. These are just a few ideas.

Because having the creativity to invent or apply complicated controlling , summoning/managing, or interesting support mechanics that aren't healing is really hard.

Trinity has been around a long time, players know it, you're not risking alienating players by giving them something new with a class completely focused on CC or something.

It's expensive to be creative. Trying new things takes time, effort, expensive labor. And you're not even sure you're going to use what you spent money on.

There's a lot of reasons, but the best games have unorthodox class dynamics. City of heroes is one of those. It's experiencing a Renaissance right now.

Fortnite does have a trinity or more usually a duo of builders / mechanical players and fraggers with the uncommon support player going for exclusively tags

The mistake games keep making is trying to get away from it. Stop. Despite what this vid says, we like the trinity.

In wow some dps fall into the support category - they provide important buffs to the others such as mana regen or higher dmg/crit and they enable the hyper dps and the healers.

Was waiting for Warframe to come up xd

I like the stealth approach and avoid enemy interactions altogether 👻

I think one of the most undderrated, and under the radar part of this, are the combat support. They're not hugely tanky, they're not even great healer's themselves, but, what they do, is hand out stat boosts and debuffs, left and right.

Yes, the bare minimum, is Tank Healer and Damage Dealer, but, arguably, stat-changers deserve a place too.

Tanks?
Not fun to use?
LMAO
This is also just complaining about the fact that division of labor always wins of generalism.
Crowd control is just support...

Ahh, old Overwatch

I'd just like to say that "Tank" makes perfect sense. Guns and cannons were a thing before tanks came, tank destroyers are specifically made to penetrate and destroy armour. Originally they were called landships but the British codenamed them tanks because the hull resembled a watertank.
The name is because of it's ability to protect it's crew, just like a tank in videogames.

Add recon and its modern military, it is there because one way or the other players will create this classes given the opportunity of freedom. It works. Best approach to prevent boredom is creating different methods to fill these positions, ie support may heal, shield, cc or use other utilities to give advantage including damage that is not suistanable.

Nothing else in gaming like the old tank and spank

well there needs to be a way to reach the goals of the game. either every player has the tools to do it. or every player has 1 key tool to reach the goal.
problem at hand: if everybody has the tools to reach their goal noone needs other people and the value of playing together is gone.
so its just the most simple way to splitt up the tools to win.

my solution:

the standard holy trinity is the weakest combination that works to clear the content.
other more complex partys can do it better but are harder to play or get together.
for example if u have 2 bruisers with sustainability and a dps u dont need a healer but
u cant heal the dmg dealer, so the dd cant be a fast aggrobuilder or to likely to die.
but since all 3 do dmg they are faster. but juggeling aggro between 2 people is hard.

Expect league of legend where tanks quand deal mode damage then dps and heal more then supports

I’ve been mulling over trying to add a fourth type to the warrior, mage, archer/thief triangle and I can’t seem to figure out something that’s would still balance out

because if it wasn't tank, dps healer it would be pointman, spotter, recon. or heavy, ranged, support. when you really think about, the trinity is just a party makeup with fundamental complimentary strengths to make a strong team that covers each players' weakness or inability.

Honestly idk why people hate the trinity I've loves games wit that in mind since wow and still love them today.

I think it would be a tetrahedron, not a square, if you were to add another archetype.
The interesting part of the triangle visualization of the trinity is that they each share aspects of one another.
Kinda like those weird triangle shaped sliders in some character creators (I think Elder Scrolls Online and Fallout 4 might have had that).

1 class would be a single point.
2 classes would be a line, point A to B. One-dimensional.
3 classes is a triangle. Two-dimensional, adding a whole new dimension/axis.
And so, 4 classes, would be a three-dimensional tetrahedron; the 4th point would be extruded on an entirely new axis and would be made partly of elements from all 3 of the original archetypes.

Just a random thought I had...
Super awesome video! I love game design so much!

mage, fighter, rogue

Your holy trinity is missing the middle triangle. Tank is surviving damag, damage mitigation, healer is well healer, dps ranged or melee, and then middle is crowd control and support of buffs and debuffs

Offense, Defense, and Support is a meta concept that exists outside of history. WoW didn't popularize it, since it exists in all team based games and thus was already popular. WoW simply codified them under those titles and gave them more role definition than in similar games.

I hate that theme

You're right that the class system can suffocate individual play styles but that's because these classes are built for team work, not individual play. So when people play games with strangers online and refuse to engage in team work & communication, of course design that was created when people role played with pals in person won't feel as natural

I miss older games that weren’t so restrictive with these three roles. What ever happened to pure support/buff roles (and not talking healer)? They just destroyed them and scattered their abilities amongst the holy trinity.

I imagine the tank as a.... tank, It does gigantic damage but is slow.

I know this is ancient by now but, honestly, I think we can split this into the holy quadrilogy. Even before considering the terrain/economic interactions. You call Healer: Support but they're very much often distinct roles. Healers typically are Ally to Ally interactions but Supports can have both Ally to Ally interactions based around buffing damage, increasing survivability, providing other utility but also a many are Ally to Enemy interactions. Debuffing enemies to take more damage, do less damage, CCing them so other players are more free to act, and so on, contributing to a party's success beyond directly taking up one of the other 3 roles.

My favorite classes are those that help control the flow of battle in nontraditional ways. Technically the saboteur/poisoner class is a support class but it lets you do some really interesting shit. I also love classes that let you control the physical battlefields. I’ve had some real fun playing driller and engineer in deep rock galactic using those tactics. Summoner/necromancer is another interesting class that changes the battlefield by changing the balance of enemies and allies, I just don’t see this class done really well.

I really like the way ffxiii played with the holy trinity with hybrid classes and phase shifts that let you swap party role composition.

I like the holy trinity just fine. Having different roles for different fighters is always interesting. This video makes a good point in how strong the pull is. When I think of it, another weird example of the holy trinity is Pokémon. At first, this seems like a different systems entirely. There are hundreds of species. There is an evolution line that essentially does its own thing. Such a line usually has 1-3 species. Larger groupings of Pokémon are elemental types with rock-paper-scissors. Yet I have gone deep within the rabbit hole that is Pokemon. I seen that the holy trinity actually emerges. Competitive players explicitly call their Pokemon specific roles. These roles are sweeper, wall and support. Sweeper means damage dealer. Wall means tank. Support is self explanatory. I have found that the types themselves lend themselves to roles. It deals with the way they interact with other types. It deals with their move pool. It deals with the attributes, which are called stats. I noticed some generalities. Fighting, ground and rock are good at physical damage dealing. Fire and ice are good at special damage dealing. Water, steel and fairy are good at tanking. Grass, poison and ghost are good at support. Perhaps Pokemon is a good example of how powerful the holy trinity allure can be.

I have four as my favorite number. It is the best way to organize ideas. I think the use of three is overrated. There is a way to apply four to combat. It is the four basic classes. The warrior is the tank. The priest is the damage dealer. The mage and rogue are the damage dealers. However they do have very different styles. So I designate them as two different roles. Mages fight at range, and they focus on offense and magic. I call this role the cannon. This is like the term "glass cannon" but without pointing out the weakness. The weakness is still there though. Rogues fight in melee, and they focus on offense and speed. It call this role scout. A quick damage dealer would be good at finding enemy groups and ambushing them. It think that is different enough. Both classes have weak defenses. So they use different methods to avoid lethal damage. Mages focus on staying in range. Rogues are focus on stealth and evasion. I think it is possible to have four roles. There is scout, cannon, tank and support. I see it used a lot in RPGs. Even Pokemon suggest this distinction. It has a distinction is between physical and special. Stats and attacks make this distinction. Types used to make this distinction. However it shifted from types to attacks. Even then it is clear when a type will have most damage dealing attacks as physical or special.

would a summoner be considered a dps or a tank? The summons can be meat shield but they can also do a lot of damage with numbers. It’s like a how bees kill a wasp.

Wr need more single player games with the trinity, most games everyone is a dps

almost cried during the rocket league part, there is no set keeper, midfielder, striker, everyone rotates and does one of the jobs on the moment

This reminds me of the rock paper scissors you could find in old 2d fighter games. The monster, the hero, and the fem fetal. Hero beats monster, monster beats fem, and fem beats hero. It seemed like that was pretty loose and you would have exceptions, but usually the fem would be quick with low health and the monster would be slow with lots of poise and health. The most variable thing I remember between different heroes was the optimal angle of attack and how much range a given attack had. I think all of those things are still pretty relevant and allow more flexibility to game designers.

When you started talking about environmental manipulation I almost had the feeling that the game designers would be included as a player class, but changing the environment is definitely different than just terrain manipulation. Fortnight has quite a bit of base construction capability, I could see that being part of the "holy square" maybe.

One other axis might be mob/NPC/turret control

Tanking in dnd at last 5e aint working rigth 🤣 but yes the trinity

basically to have more roles than roles focused around damage you need to add more gameplay mechanics than dealing damage WHAT A SURPRISE-

This comes down to balancing between generalists and specialists. Some games should be more general in its design, each class/playstyle being quite similar (imagine cod). Whereas other games benefit more from specializing and differing (think tf2).

Tanks should be able to deal damage, the fact that you have to rely on a spiky marshmallow to everything is dumb